


After Trost

by FatZorro



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Sexual Content, Spoilers, violent imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 14:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1269748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FatZorro/pseuds/FatZorro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A poem-story about Jean and Marco if Marco had survived the battle of Trost and joined the Military Police with Jean</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Trost

**Author's Note:**

> So I just needed to write my way through this goddamn block I've been having, and the idea for a kind of extended poem thing popped into my head. I decided I needed to write it while the inspiration was hot, so here it is!

The floor of barracks just beyond the Trost Gate is no place to sleep

But it’s the only place they could fit the dozens of terrified trainees

They lie on thin sheets on the hard wooden floor, trembling

Like wounded birds, small and fragile

Marco and Jean share a single sheet

Marco is curled, his face in Jean’s chest

His eyes are wide and unblinking, and tears stream endlessly down his face

Loud, gasping sobs escape from his open mouth

He wishes he could see his friend right in front of him, but all his eyes show him

Is this gaping maw of death, opening over and over in front of his face

Jean’s chin rests on the crown of his head, tears pouring from his own eyes

His gritted teeth do nothing to abate his own shaking cries

His nerves are on fire

His heart is pounding

He sees teeth in every wall

Giant hands descending from every ceiling beam

And he cries with Marco

There is no room for brave faces here

No use pretending

They are children

Once blooming brightly into young adulthood

And now stained with blood

Seeing things no one should have to

Hearing their friends’ bone and sinew crunch and stretch and snap between giant teeth

Smelling their blood

Tasting death and smoke on the air

Jean closes his eyes and sees in his head

Marco, lifted into the air, his arms pinned to his sides

A mouth opening like a gaping hole in reality

And he remembers the feeling of everything going quiet

Of feeling nothing but air all around him

His pulse slowing, his eyes focusing

Just him and two wires, sweeping him through the air

He remembers not hearing his own yell as his blades sank into flesh

The feeling of hot, bitter blood scalding his skin

The feeling of his body colliding with Marco’s before he could hit the ground

The feeling of ceiling tiles crunching and scattering as they both tumbled onto a rooftop together

He remembers this, and tries not to remember

Limbs being ripped from their sockets

Heads with bright young faces crushed within massive jaws

Right before his eyes

Because of him

He tries not to remember but he remembers it anyway

And he cries

And Marco cries

And they are certainly not the only ones, no; the room is filled with sobs and wails

And the sound of cannons thundering endlessly rumbles in the distance

It will be a sleepless night for all but some

Jean sees Annie and Bertholdt slumbering fitfully, and Reiner sits against the wall beside them, his eyes dark

Ymir sits near them, stroking the hair of a trembling Krista

Connie clutches his sides, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the tears

Sasha stares at the ceiling, her eyes like saucers

Armin sits with his face in his hands, completely still

Mikasa is the only peaceful one, her sleeping breaths slow and even

Jean will never know what she’s dreaming about

Eren is… somewhere else

Somewhere he’s not allowed to know about

Jean doesn’t want to think about it

He holds Marco closer to him, trying to hold him in one piece, their cries redoubling

Praying he won’t feel blood

Praying he won’t look down and see a headless corpse

Praying he won’t lose the one thing he has left

 

Last night they burned the corpses

Tonight they decide

Jean and Marco sit against a wall at high noon, listening to the cannonfire still echoing atop the wall

Marco’s face is so pale, nearly translucent

And although the tears have stopped his eyes are still wide, still seeing more than just what’s in front of him

Jean hopes he’ll one day see him smile again

He knows he looks no better; he is gaunt, deep bags like bruises forming under his eyes from lack of sleep

He vomited his breakfast. Marco didn’t even try eating

Jean’s body is weak from hunger, but he doesn’t care

His stomach feels like it’s filled with the blood and bones and chewed-up meat

Of friends that he led into battle

He wishes he could vomit them out

He wishes he could vomit the memories and the images from his brain until he was just an empty, peaceful husk

He’s tried, shoving fingers down his throat when no one was looking and heaving until he collapsed

But his stomach is empty

His mind is not

“Maybe we should join the Survey Corps.”

Jean thinks it’s just an auditory hallucination at first, but then he sees Marco looking at him expectantly

It’s the first time he’s spoken all day

“Are you out of your mind?” Jean wishes he could push some more emotion into his voice, but he’s too weak

“I can’t get Eren’s voice out of my head.”

Marco looks up at the sky

“He said he would want to be in a team led by me. I feel like… I feel like I owe it to him.”

“You don’t owe him shit,” Jean leans in, “Marco, we’re joining the Military Police.”

They’re both silent for a moment

“Eren said something to me too. He told me ‘you’re surviving the fight today, and you’re going to Wall Sina tomorrow’. It was just before the battle. I don’t intend to disappoint him.”

Marco looks back down

“Everyone else is joining the Survey Corps. I know they are. I just…” he bites his lip

Small tears pool in the corners of his eyes

“I just want to be able to protect them.”

Jean’s voice is hoarse and choked when he responds

“And I just want to see you safe!”

Marco looks at him in surprise as Jean grabs his hand

Tears are in his eyes now, too

“We are going to Wall Sina, and we are never going to see another titan again.”

They hold each other’s gaze

Then Marco looks down and nods softly, squeezing Jean’s hand

 

Their first night in the Military Police Training Headquarters, after a lengthy and drowsy carriage ride to Wall Sina, Marco wakes up screaming

Jean lies awake in the bunk underneath him and asks if it was a nightmare

He doesn’t need to hear the answer to know

He tells Marco that he had one too

Though Jean’s scream hadn’t woken him

They share a room in the Headquarters, and it’s much nicer than the old barracks in the Trainee Corps

Neither of them is used to sleeping without a dozen other slumbering bodies around them

Jean gets a cup of water from the bathroom to give to Marco

Running water isn’t something he had in Trost, and it’s still a novelty to him

When he returns Marco thanks him and gulps the drink down thirstily

Jean climbs into the top bunk with him without a word

Marco makes room gratefully

They both slept next to each other in their trainee days

Some nights a little closer together than others

And now that sleeping proximity is the only thing they have left to remind them of the days before Hell

The bottom bunk is never used again

 

Weeks go by

They send letters to their friends in the Survey Corps and receive letters in return

Jean is more relieved than he admits when he hears that Eren’s life was spared

Memories of the day Wall Rose was breached and then resealed begin to fade ever so slowly

Eventually they are no longer constantly at the forefront of their minds

Marco and Jean are able to push those thoughts behind a thin veil

And continue on with some semblance of normalcy

Though they are always there

They sleep in the same bunk each night

Sometimes intertwined

Sometimes separate

Whatever they need to bring comfort

When Jean kisses Marco the first time Marco asks him why

He says it’s because it felt right

Marco tells him to do it again

In the evenings when they return to their room he tells Jean that he’s not satisfied with the state of the Military Police

He says he wants to change things

At one time Jean wouldn’t have cared, but he can’t help but feel distaste at the corruption around him

They aren’t the only ones

There’s another boy who shares Marco’s feelings, and during meals they talk

About how they’ll move up in the system and make changes themselves

Jean is surprised when he hears that Marco still wants to serve the King directly

He thought he’d forgotten

When he sees his face, he can almost see the smiling, hopeful boy he’d trained with

He’s returning, piece by tiny piece

When the two of them wake up in the mornings with all the hardest parts of their bodies pressed together

They give each other sleepy release with their hands

They both live for those moments

When their minds explode, and all they can feel is their bodies and each other

And just for a few seconds, the memories disappear

And the blood is washed from their minds

They’ve never been taught that they’re any different from anyone else

That some might not approve

They’ve never seen themselves as any different from their parents

They never even knew there was a separate word for two men falling in love

They just thought it was something that happened to happen to them

And if anyone were to judge they would probably laugh

Because no one here could _ever_ understand

That all they had was each other

That neither could live without the other anymore

And they didn’t even know if they really loved each other or if it was just necessity

But whatever it was, it was all they had

And it was enough

 

Jean lied when he said they’d never see another titan again

Though he didn’t know it was a lie until it was too late

Somehow, all his wildest nightmares

Which he knew were impossible

Came true

He and Marco were transporting his old rival through the city

And though they told no one, they could tell it was just Connie in a wig

Then the sky split in half and a noise like thunder rocked the city

Jean thought that all titans were supposed to have male characteristics

And that they were supposed to be mindless and predictable

But this one was a towering, skinless female that moved with terrifying, precise intelligence

The two of them worked with the rest of the MPs to ensure the citizens’ safety while the Survey Corps fought the Female Titan

They caught a few glimpses of Mikasa gliding through the air, and marvelled at how she’d improved

And eventually they once again heard that roar that still echoed in the back of their dreams

Eren

They didn’t even notice that Annie was missing

 

When the Military Police were called to aid the Survey Corps beyond the wall, Jean and Marco rode with them

It was as if they’d been thrown into a dream

In just one night they’d been told a million impossible things

Annie, Reiner, Bertholdt

All traitors

Ymir

A mystery

Krista

The bastard child of an influential house within the wall cult

While they had been working behind Wall Sina their friends had been dealing with one impossible scenario after the next

And now this

There were far more titans here than in Trost

They were everywhere, all around them

And far ahead of them, a massive armoured giant running with its hands cupped around its collar

They still couldn’t believe it was Reiner

They never lost sight of each other

No matter what their orders were, no matter what the situation was

That was their agreement

They stayed together

Marco would distract while Jean used his speed to move in for the kill

They felt a horrific kind of nostalgia, fighting alongside their old comrades once again

Each of them seemed so different, hardened by the constant death and terror they had endured with the Survey Corps

And that hardness was what gave Marco and Jean the resolve to keep it together and fight

Even when invincible Mikasa found herself facing two rows of tombstone-like teeth

Jean didn’t falter

He flew in to the rescue, the same way he had for Marco

They were hardly even surprised when the titans suddenly began ignoring them and swarming the Armoured Titan, seemingly at Eren’s command

No one was surprised by impossible things anymore

They returned to Wall Sina in a daze

So many people had died around them

The Military Police was nearly destroyed

But it wasn’t like last time

Everything had happened in a frenzy, almost too quick to process

No one had died on Jean’s command this time

It didn’t feel real

 

One day, Marco got his chance to serve the King

It was when the Survey Corps and the Garrison decided

That the current government just wouldn’t do anymore

At the climax of events

It was Marco who stood between Erwin Smith and the King

But when all was said and done

It was Marco’s bullet that ended the King’s life

 

One day, long after that

There were no titans

There were no walls

And Jean and Marco sat against a wall at high noon, holding hands

The future stretched out before them like an endless blue sky

They never knew that this was what real breathing felt like

Some of their friends they were reunited with

And some they mourned

No one would ever be able to wipe away the blood and the bones and the crushing teeth and giant reaching hands that plagued their nightmares

No one could wipe away the images of young eyes dead and glazed over, or crying faces disappearing down massive gullets

But Marco’s face was bright

And Jean kissed it every day

Jean’s face was peaceful

And Marco loved every inch of it

And their bed was never cold with the two of them in it

Holding each other or sleeping side by side

Whatever they needed to enjoy peace.


End file.
